Nigerians jailed or killed abroad in the year

Osezua Osolase, 42, tricked poverty-stricken Nigerian orphans into travelling to the (United Kingdom)UK with the promise of a better life.

But the young victims were raped, sexually abused and subjected to voodoo-style rituals by a child trafficking ring.

He was jailed for 20 years on October 28.

Osolase, the linchpin of a multi-million pound global sex trafficking ring, used ‘juju’ magic (charm) to control his victims.

He told the teenage girls they would die or never bear children if they tried to escape or revealed what had happened to them.

Judge Adele Williams told Osolase: “You are arrogant and manipulative, you are devoid of conscience, devoid of any compassion to your victims. You were dealing in exploitation and misery and degradation. You have been convicted on clear and compelling evidence of trafficking two girls in and out of the UK. Once they arrived in the UK the reality was explained to them that they were going to have to work as prostitutes. They were petrified that if they spoke out they would be harmed and killed.”

The charges relate to three girls aged 14, 16, and 17. One was raped and all three endured juju rituals, including one conducted by Osolase himself.

One feared she was being taken to another country to be used as a human sacrifice. Osolase slashed the chest of his youngest victim with a razor and rubbed black powder into her bleeding wounds.

On the surface, Osolase was a recycling worker living in a terraced house in Gravesend, Kent. But his home was a secret staging post for vulnerable teenage orphans as they were smuggled from Africa, through Britain, to several European countries.

Detectives discovered evidence that at least 28 victims were smuggled in and out of Britain over a 14-month period, earning him up to £1.5 million.

Former Delta State Governor James Ibori was sentenced to a 13- year jail term in April for pocketing £50 million, which he splashed on a life of luxury, including his own private jet.

But the £50 million may prove to be ‘ludicrously low’, said Judge Anthony Pitts as he sentenced Ibori for a series of offences, including fraud and money laundering.

“In the light of other matters, perhaps that is a ludicrously low figure and the figure may be in excess of £200 million. It is difficult to tell,” he told Southwark Crown Court in London.

Ibori’s spending included a portfolio of luxury houses, a £12.6 million private jet, a fleet of top-of-the-range cars, top UK boarding school places for his children, first-class travel and posh hotels.

It was heard that he tried to pay a $15 million bribe to a government official to make the corruption investigation ‘go away’.

He was helped by family members, including his wife – Nkoyo, sister – Christine Ibori-Ibie, his mistress Udoamaka Oniugbo, and a series of corrupt professionals – a London-based lawyer, Bhadresh Gohil, who acted as his banker and set up a myriad of off-shore companies, a fiduciary agent, Daniel Benedict McCann, a corporate financier, Lambertus De Boer – who have all been jailed for a total of 30 years.

His fraud unravelled when the Metropolitan Police raided the office of ‘trusted servant’ Gohil, 47, who was jailed for 10 years, and found hard drives containing detailed records hidden in the wall behind a fire place.

Two Nigerian fraudsters, whose global £2.7 million scam had deadly consequences for one family they mercilessly ripped off, were jailed December 4.

Police identified a total of thirteen victims. They lost an average of £207, 000 each, after the duo convinced them they were due for an Australian lottery pay-out, inheritance, investment benefit or were sold non-existent heavy plant machinery.

Obinnam Nwokolo, 37, of 20 Chesworth Close, Erith, who amassed a valuable property portfolio in the UK and Nigeria, received six years and four months and Uchechhukwu Onuoha, 40, of Aspen Green, Erith, who entered the UK on a student visa, received five years and two months.

Both pleaded guilty at Croydon Crown Court to conspiracy to defraud between October 1, 2008 and September 15 last year.

One of their victims, Betty McClellan, 62, of Hyde Park, Los Angeles, was shot dead by her husband Hersey McClellan, 63, who then shot himself on June 20, 2010 after she wired £264,000 — blowing the couple’s hard-earned pension.

Ene, who got sixteen months imprisonment in March for a £27,000 Euromilions lottery scam on an 83-year-old Northampton pensioner, was jailed for two years and eight months for laundering £342,400.

Jessica Tata, 24, was jailed in Texas for abandoning young children in her day care while she went on a shopping trip to Target.

Tata, who was only a few years removed from her teens when she started her day care, worked alone most of the time.

Investigators said the February 2011 blaze happened when a pan of oil she had left cooking on the stove ignited while she was out shopping.

Houston jurors sentenced Tata to 80 years in prison for the death of one of the children, 16-month-old Elias Castillo. She faces charges related to the rest of the children.

Tata fled to Nigeria after the fire but was captured after about a month, returned to the U.S. in March 2011. She was born in the U.S. but has Nigerian citizenship.

A Nigerian couple who tried to claim £3.8 million in an ‘eye-watering’ benefits scam using 1,400 stolen identities were jailed in September for a total of almost 10 years.

Adeola Thomas, 38, assisted by his partner, Abimbola Abiola, 34, managed to pocket £87,000 after submitting almost 2,500 handwritten applications for tax credits and benefits. The pair spent the money on designer clothing and electrical items, including a 50-inch plasma television.

The fraud was discovered when it was noticed the same address was being used for multiple claims, Snaresbrook Crown Court heard.

Thomas, an illegal immigrant, was jailed for seven years while Abiola, also a Nigerian national with leave to remain in the UK, was jailed two-and-a-half years.

Both Thomas and Abiola are to be deported at the end of their prison terms.

The pair, who carried out the scam between January 3, 2007 and October 7, 2011, tried to claim £827,000 from HMRC, securing £43,000.

They also claimed £3 million from the Department of Work and Pensions and received £44,000.

With Abiola’s help, Thomas used stolen personal details to complete 2,495 handwritten application forms, which were sent to the appropriate departments for processing.

Investigators viewed CCTV footage showing activity outside various North London Post Office ATMs and carried out surveillance on Thomas.

He also had two mobile phones and two fraudulently completed application forms addressed to Job Centre Plus.

Mrs. Abiola, a mother-of-one, was caught on the same day with £4,125 cash in her handbag, which she claimed was child benefit payment.

Thomas, of Hackney, East London, admitted three counts of conspiracy to defraud and money laundering.

She was found guilty of four counts of conspiracy to defraud, money laundering and possession of criminal property following a trial at the court in August.

He was arrested outside a cash point at Upper Clacton Post Office in Hackney, East London on October 7 where he was found to be in possession of 17 Post Office accounts.

In August, a Nigerian couple, who claimed their kids were possessed by evil spirits, was jailed for seven years each.

The Nigerian couple was found guilty after Coronation Street star Michelle Collins gave evidence against them.

They beat their children with brooms, hoovers and wires and even gave their baby a morphine overdose just days after her first birthday. The Nigerians, whose identities were not revealed, face deportation – despite pleas from their legal team that they have been ‘punished enough’ by having their children taken into care.

As they left the court they wailed: ‘We are innocent, this is a miscarriage of justice.’

Also jailed in the year were two Nigerian teens, Nelson Idiabeta and Nathaniel Okusanya. They killed an innocent 17-year-old student after mistaking him for a rival gang member.

Their victim, Kwame Ofosu-Asare, who was ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time’, was stabbed 14 times in the back in a ‘cowardly and merciless’ murder.

The 17-year-old was mistaken for a rival in a ‘poisonous and senseless’ gang war, a court heard as Idiabeta and Okusanya were jailed for life.

The pair were members of the TN1 gang – Trust No One – out to avenge one of their members who was stabbed by a rival gang member from the GAS gang – Guns and Shanks – just hours earlier.

His killers had toured housing estates in Brixton to find rival gang members and came upon the 17-year-old son of a sports broadcast journalist and his friend, who had nothing to do with any gang.

Kwame and his friend with a ‘sixth sense’ ran away into a cul de sac where his friend’s aunt lived in a desperate attempt to get to safety – but she was not at home.

His friend managed to jump over a wall but Kwame was trapped and then killed on March 2.

He shouted out he was from Catford and pleaded ‘I’m not from round here, I’m not from round here’ but he was murdered by the pair who had persuaded a shopper to buy them at least one substantial kitchen knife just hours before the attack.

After an Old Bailey jury found the pair guilty Idiabeta, now 18 was jailed for 19 years while Okusanya, 19, was jailed for 20 years.

Esther Arogundade, a 32- year-old Nigerian resident in London, was attacked and killed by another Nigerian, Shola Adebiyi, a kitchen porter, in her own home after she began a relationship with another man.

Adebiyi also drank oven cleaner in an attempt to kill himself and phoned Esther’s new lover to say he would never see her again before confessing to the killing to a friend.

Police broke into home of a mother-of-two in Salford, Greater Manchester, and found KFC worker Esther lying dead on the kitchen floor with multiple stab wounds to her back and front.

Adebiyi was jailed at Manchester Crown Court for a minimum of 20-and-a-half years after admitting killing her.

The court heard how Esther began dating Adebiyi in 2007 and that they later had a two-year-old daughter but seperated last year after a series of rows.

The prosecutor, Rob Hall, told the court: “These arguments were ignited by differences of opinion over the religion of their daughter, the defendant wanted her to convert from Christian to Islam, but Esther was a church goer.

“There were arguments about expenses, bills and childcare.”

Last March Esther, who also had a nine-year-old daughter living in Nigeria from a previous relationship, began a friendship with another man named in court as Mr. Alabi.

While visiting family back home in Nigeria, Mr. Alabi received a sinister phone call from Adebiyi, claiming he would be killed if he returned to the UK.

Mr. Alabi told Esther about the call and she spoke to Adebiyi but he initially denied it.

On June 26, Adebiyi cleared out his locker at work at a conference centre in Manchester, then left armed with a large kitchen knife and waited for Esther and their daughter to come home.

Throughout that evening there were phone calls between Mr. Alabi and Esther and also a child minder who was booked for the next day.

But the following morning, Adebiyi was said to have made “frantic arrangements” to get child care for his daughter and handed her over at 9.50am along with her birth certificate and left in her push chair.

He then called Mr. Alabi, who asked about the whereabouts and welfare of Esther only to be told he would never see her again.

Adebiyi then called a friend and confessed he had killed Esther, claiming it had happened during a fight.

The friend went to the house and saw Adebiyi come out wearing a blood-stained T-shirt and holding a large black-handled knife.

He saw him throw the knife into nearby bushes.

Chinedu Onyeuku

Also, a former Nigerian national basketball player, Chinedu Onyeuku, 29, was shot dead in a botched burglary in Texas before thanksgiving, it has been revealed.

Onyeuku was trying to break into a home in Plano on November 21 and was shot and killed by the homeowner, police say.

Onyeuku had played for the Nigerian team that qualified for this summer’s Olympic Games in London. According to the Dallas News, Onyeuku and another person allegedly tried to break into a residence on Rio Grande Street in Plano, Texas the night of November 21.

It is unclear why Onyeuku and his companion were trying to break into the residence.

To allow this piece go without a comment, i will be guilty of professional misconduct of the highest order. For this reason, i would like to praise the brains behind this job. It is well researched, informative, educative, detailed, creative, and for the archive. Kudos to The Nation.

TheSilentObserver

Why so much on the negative? At least there were also a number of Nigerians in Diaspora with very positive achievements and stories. So much for unbalanced reporting….